I'm not like most people
by TeenageMutantGingerNinja
Summary: The one where they all have super powers.
1. Chapter one - Discoveries

The Earth is large. Large enough that you think you can hide from anything. From Fate. From God. If only you found a place far enough away. So you run. To the edge of the Earth. Where all is safe again. Quiet, and warm. The solace of salt air. The peace of danger left behind. The luxury of grief. And maybe, for a moment, you believe you have escaped. You can run far, you can take your small precautions. But have you really gotten away? Can you ever escape? Or is it the truth that you did not have the strength or cunning to hide from destiny? That the world is not small, you are. And, fate can find you anywhere.

Some individuals, it is true, are more special. This is natural selection. It begins as a single individual born or hatched like every other member of their species. Anonymous. Seemingly ordinary. Except they're not. They carry inside them the genetic code that will take their species to the next evolutionary rung. It's destiny.

We all imagine ourselves the agents of our destiny, capable of determining our own fate. But have we truly any choice in when we rise? Or when we fall? Or does a force larger than ourselves bid us our direction? Is it evolution that takes us by the hand? Does science point our way? Or is it God who intervenes, keeping us safe? For all his bluster, it is the sad province of man that he cannot choose his triumph. He can only choose how he will stand when the call of destiny comes, hoping he will have the courage to answer.

* * *

**Lydia Martin (18) and Matt Daehler (17)**

**Dallas, Texas**

The school was just an ordinary high school. You had the clever people and the not so clever people, the sporty and the not so sporty, the good looking and the really quite unfortunate. The cheerleaders were the most popular of the girls and the football players the most popular of the boys. Everything you would expect in a school. Lydia Martin was a cheerleader, most sought after girl in the school, everything about her was seemingly normal. The only problem? She's far from it.

"Would you stop being such a wuss and do it already? Or am I going to have to do this myself?" Matt Daehler, one of the most unpopular boys in the school, (but a surprising friend of Lydia none the less) stood next to a camera stand, a worried expression on his face.

"Lydia, I really don't think we should be doing this." Lydia sighed and walked over to him, placing her hands on his shoulders. He already knew that she was bound to change his mind somehow, but he was just worried that it wouldn't work; worried that something terrible would happen.

"You trust me, don't you?" Matt reluctantly nodded and Lydia started to smile. "And you know that I wouldn't ask you to do anything if I wasn't one hundred percent sure of it first, right?"

"Well, yeah I know, it's just... What if it doesn't work? What if you're wrong?"

"Then you call an ambulance and we pray I don't die." Matt sighed, smiling a little. "So you'll do it then? Please Matt?" There were so many reasons why he should say no to her, so many things that could go wrong. But he just couldn't do it; he said yesterday that he'd help her so that's what he's going to do.

"Where do you want the camera?" Lydia gave him a quick hug before directing him to the place she wanted to have the camera. It was important they got the shot correct the very first time because this was not something that he was wanting to do again in a hurry and he suspected neither did Lydia, even if it did work as she expected.

The room they were currently standing was an abandoned warehouse somewhere in the middle of nowhere, stacks of equipment used for god knows what piled high around the room. Matt picked up one of the long metal poles off the floor; the pole was pointed at one end, making it incredibly sharp. He pressed his thumb to the tip of the pole, just to see how sharp it really was and winced when he drew blood.

"Well, its sharp enough, Lyd. It's definitely going to go through."

"That's great, Matt, but could you please hurry up? We need to be at school in half an hour and I don't want to be late." Matt brought the pole over to the camera stand so that he could set the camera into the place that they needed it.

"Are you sure you're sure about this? Because if you're wrong, I could get arrested." Lydia moved so that she was stood in line with the camera, ignoring his question, and gestured to him to press play on the camera. He did so and moved over to the side, making sure everything was right before going over the far end of the room, calling over to her. "It's ready!" Lydia gave him a thumbs up before starting.

"My name is Lydia Martin, and this is recorded test number one." Lydia turned so she was facing Matt and nodded, signalling that she was ready. Matt took a deep breath before running as fast as he could towards her, pushing with as much force as he could muster, and letting the pole lodge itself as far into Lydia's chest as it would go.

Lydia staggered back a few paces after the blow, crying out in pain. Matt ran back towards the camera and picked it up off the stand so that he could zoom into where the pole was rammed into her chest. He kept the camera on as she took hold of the pole with both hands and pulled, the pole slowly coming out with a sickening squelch. It was covered in blood as it clattered to the ground, rolling away from them but they both ignored it.

Matt's mouth hung open in shock as he watched the hole in her chest started to heal itself, leaving no sign that there had ever been one there. Lydia looked up at him, a small smile on her face as the wound fully healed.

"Test one complete. I'm still alive."

Matt was by far one of the least popular boys in their year at school, he was in the superheroes club for starters, something that people felt the need to laugh at him for at least twice a day. When Lydia had joined the school the previous year he'd been asked to show her around the school, help her make some new friends. He'd thought she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, so naturally the popular crowd were the first ones to latch onto her, get he to join their 'inner circle'.

So during school he was just Matt the geek that no one talked to other than the rest of superhero club (Current status of three members), but outside of school Lydia was his best friend. He was glad that he had her to talk to, that he actually had a friend was something he would forever be glad about, but sometimes he wished that she would talk to him inside school as well. He understood why she didn't, not wanting to ruin her 'image', but sometimes he wished that she wouldn't think things like that really mattered.

The entire school day he'd been glad no one really talked to him because he was sire that if they did he'd get too excited and tell everyone about what had happened with Lydia, because if e was honest it was one of the coolest things he had ever seen. Lydia, however, was mostly scared. She was scared that if anyone found out about her... Gift, then they would label her as a freak of nature and she'd be bullied for it. He'd been trusted with the safety of the video they'd made, to make sure that under no circumstances anyone was to ever see it.

So that was how he found himself running down the hallway at the end of school, trying to get her attention as she pretend she couldn't hear a word he was saying.

"Lydia!" Matt ran as fast as he could to try and catch up with her, knocking into people in the process. "Sorry! I am so sorry!" He didn't slow down to make sure he hadn't hurt anyone, carrying on running to get to her before she left.

"Lydia, wait! Please!" He let out a sigh of relief and slowed down when she stopped, turning to face him.

"What is it Matt?" She was checking around herself to make sure that none of her friends were around to see them together. When he reached her he leaned back against the lockers, trying to catch his breath. Lydia folded her arms in annoyance when she was certain her friends weren't around, she lowered her voice when she spoke "Well?"

"Do you have to be so grumpy all the time?" He continued what he was saying when she raised an eyebrow at him, clearly not amused. "Not a time for jokes, I'm sorry. But Huston, we have a problem."

"Not a time for quotes either I'd imagine, what could be a bigger problem than what ever is happening to me?"

"It's a hell of a lot bigger than that, Lyd. Like a million times worse." Lydia rolled her eyes at him.

"Stop exaggerating and just tell me what's happened already!"

"I may have, sort of, most definitely lost the camera." Lydia eyes widened as a look of panic appeared on her face.

"You what?!"

"I lost the ca-" Matt winced and took a step back when Lydia slapped him on the arm.

"I heard you, you idiot! Where did you lose it?"

"If I knew do you not think I would be looking for it right now?" Lydia huffed out a breath and turned on her heel down the corridor, Matt following behind her. He genuinely had no idea who had his camera or where it could be. He'd put it in his locker as soon as they'd gotten to school to ensure that he _didn't_ lose it, apparently he wasn't so careful at making sure no one was watching when he put in the combination as he thought he was. "Lydia, where are you going?"

"I'm going to find the camera, what do you think?"

"Well how are you going to do that? We don't know where it is?" They two of them opened the front doors of the school and headed through the car park to where Matt's bike was chained up.

"I don't know, Matt. But we need to find that video because if someone finds out then..."

"I know, I know. You'll be the town freak." When they reached the bike rack Matt took out his keys to unlock the chain that was keeping his bike secure, putting the chain in his bag and pulling the bike out of its hold.

"And no one likes a freak." Matt looked up at her with a small smile on his face.

"Yeah, I know." Lydia sighed as h started to walk over to the schools exit to leave.

"You're not a freak, Matt." He got on his bike and cycled back home, muttering to himself as he went.

"Tell that to everyone else."

* * *

**Scott McCall (23)**

**Seattle, Washington**

Scott loved working at the hospital, ever since he was little he would come to the hospital and wait in the staff room whilst his mum was on her shift and wish that he could go and help her. A strange wish for a young child to have, but his wish none the less. His mum, Melissa, worked as a nurse at the hospital and Scott thought that was the greatest thing in the world and had decided that when he grew up he wanted to be just like her.

Now, at the age of twenty-three, he was finally getting to do that. He's currently working as a trainee at his mums' hospital, helping out all the patients he can and he loves it. Loves being able to save people, loves looking after them but most of all he loves that his mum is proud of him. The hospital was always pretty busy so there was never a dull moment; one time a kid he even got to help a kid who'd gotten a Lego brick stuck in his ear, it was awesome.

"McCall, can you come and assist me in here please?" Scott looked over at the man that had called him over, Doctor Harris, and nodded, walking over to where he was standing outside cubicle number fourteen. "Okay, McCall. In there is an Allison Argent. She came in after an accident whilst running, could you please take her to get her wrist x-rayed? I think she's just fractured it but we need to get it checked out in case it's broken, just to be on the safe side."

"Yeah, sure, I'll take her down there now." Scott went to open the curtain when Doctor Harris placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Scott raised an eyebrow when he turned to look at him. "Yes?"

"No dordelling this time, this is not an opportunity to spend some time with your mother. We're busy today, we need you back up here as soon as possible, you got that." Scott nodded and pulled away from him before opening the curtain to talk to Allison. He stopped for a moment to stare when he saw her, taken back by the beauty of the girl sat on the edge of the bed. When she started to laugh he looked around the room properly to see a man, probably her farther, stood in the corner of the room. He smiled at him and tried to stop himself from going red. Going over to the other side of the bed, he got the wheelchair that was there and pushed it over to where Allison was sat.

"Would you mind sitting in the chair please?" Allison frowned, looking confused at the wheelchair.

"Why? Where am I going?"

"Sorry, I should have mentioned that." Scott glanced over at the man in the corner of the room when he spoke up.

"Yes, you should have done. Isn't that the first thing you should have mentioned? What happened to Doctor Harris?" The man was quite tall; he had strong features and dark blond hair. He looked like the sort of man that would do well in a fight and Scott didn't like him all that much.

"Dad, can you please not do this here? Not now." Scott watched as Allison laid a hand on her fathers arm to stop him from saying anything else. He nodded and took a step so that he was closer to the bed. "I'm sorry, what were you saying." Scott turned his attention back to Allison before continuing.

"You urm... You need to go down and get your arm x-rayed, just to make sure it's not broken." She pushed herself off the bed with her good hand, her father putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her from going anywhere.

"Why does she need that?" He gestured to the wheelchair at his daughter's feet. "She can walk just fine; it's her wrist that's injured, not her feet." Allison looked up at her father and pushed his hand off her shoulder before sitting in the chair.

"Just leave it, Dad. It's fine." Scott turned the chair round and pushed it out of the cubicle, stopping to close the curtain again, stopping anyone from taking the room whilst they were gone.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to wait by reception whilst I take your daughter down for an x-ray." The man folded his arms and moved to stand next to his daughter.

"Yeah, and why's that? Why can't I go with her?"

"Just hospital procedure, Sir. Only patients and staff are allowed down there." The man glared at Scott for a few seconds before bending down to kiss his daughters cheek. After getting up again he took a few reluctant steps back so that they could leave.

"I'll just wait for you over there then." Allison smiled and waved with her good hand as Scott pushed the wheelchair in the direction of the x-ray rooms. Scott was glad to be away from the man, he never liked having to deal with stubborn family members, especially not the ones that looked like they could very easily beat him up.

They went to the x-ray room in silence for a while; he didn't really know what to say to her. So he was thankful, when after a few minutes, Allison spoke up.

"I'm sorry about my Dad; he's a little bit..."

"Scary?" Allison laughed at him, for the second time that day, and shook her head, turning a bit in the chair to look up at him.

"I was going to say protective, but I guess scary works too." Scott smiled at her and stopped the wheelchair to open the door, pushing it enough that it would stay open on its own. He returned to the chair and pushed it through, pushing the door shut again with his foot before continuing towards the x-ray rooms.

"So, Doctor Harris told me it was a running accident?" Allison sighed and turned back around in the chair.

"Before you make any judgments, I'm a great runner."

"I'm sure you're a brilliant runner." Allison smiled; Scott turned the corner and pulled open the door to the x-ray department as she continued talking.

"Thank you. I guess it was my fault really; I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going. I didn't expect there to be many people walking around because it's quite early. This woman came out of the coffee shop just ahead of me and I ran into her, we fell, I busted my wrist and she got covered in coffee. I think she's in here too because she burnt her arm. Do you think I should go and apologise?" Scott couldn't help but laugh as he pushed her into the department, stopping at the reception to wait for someone to come over. "Hey, don't laugh, I'm in hospital!"

"Oh come on, you have to admit that it's a bit funny."

"Okay fine, maybe a little bit. But it still really hurt and I'm sure that poor woman hates me right now."

"You don't seem like am easy person to hate to me." Allison smiled at him and turned to the woman that had just come over to talk to them. Scott told the nurse that he'd brought her down to get her arm x-rayed and asked them to page Doctor Harris when they had the results so he could get Scott to come and collect them. The nurse nodded and took Allison's documents from Scott to get them checked over.

"Well, good luck with your x-ray. I have to be getting back." Allison looked back up at him as he spoke, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

"Thank you, ermm..."

"Scott. My names Scott."

"Well thank you Scott, will you be coming back to get me after the x-ray?"

"I can if you'd like me too."

"Yeah, I'd like that."

* * *

**Erica Reyes, Isaac Lahey and Vernon Boyd (19)**

**Phoenix, Arizona**

"Happy Birthday, Erica!" Erica dropped her hands from her eyes and gasped in shock when she saw the garden. The boys had decorated it with red and blue balloons; there were lights hanging from the trees; a banner saying 'Happy 19th Birthday' hanging between two trees and a fire glowing in the middle of the garden. She turned around to her friends and pulled them both in for a hug.

"Thank you, guys. This is amazing!" She pulled away from the two of them excitedly and went over to the fire, the three of them sitting down on the log that was on the floor beside it. Isaac put an arm around her and pulled her in for a hug again.

"We're glad you like it, took us a while to convince mum to let us do it." Erica looked up at him and frowned.

"How come?"

"She wasn't convinced that we wouldn't burn the garden down with the fire." Erica laughed and shook her head, her mum loved her garden almost as much as she loved her and Isaac, and that was a lot.

Erica used the have a small family, just her and her mum, but when Isaac's family died in a car crash her mum had stepped up and adopted him. That had been ten years ago and the two of them had been best friends ever since, they may not be biological brother and sister but he was family none the less. They met Boyd when they moved to high school, now he spent more time at their home than he did his own. Boyd and Isaac were as much her family as her mum was and she wouldn't have it any other way.

They spent the rest of the night out in the garden, roasting marshmallows on the fire and talking about anything that came to mind. Boyd's new position on the football team, Erica getting into the acting class she wanted too and Isaac finally getting the courage to talk to the girl that he had a massive crush on. A perfectly normal day between the three of them, nothing out of the ordinary.

At around half eleven, Erica's mum came out to talk to them.

"Hey Sweetie." Erica smiled when her mum lent down and kissed her on the head. "Happy Birthday."

"Thanks mum, for letting them do this, it's amazing."

"You're right, it does look pretty cool. I brought the camera out, thought I could get a group picture?" Erica got up off the log, pulled Isaac up then turned to Boyd holding out her hands. Boyd didn't make any move to get up, just frowning from his seat.

"Come on, just one picture? For me?" Boyd sighed and took hold of her hands to help pull himself up. Erica smiled and hugged him before going over to where her mum was directing Isaac to stand under the banner. She put her arms around the two of them and they all smiled for the picture. Then one picture turned into two and then three because apparently 'the lighting wasn't right'.

"Mum, I think we've got enough now."

"Just one more?" Erica smiled and went over to her mum and pushed her gently in the direction of the house, taking the camera off her. "Okay, okay. I'm going." She looked over her shoulder to call over to them as she walked back to the house. "You three have fun and don't make too much noise or you'll wake up the neighbours!"

"We won't, night mum."

"Night sweetie." Erica waved at her mum as she shut the door, turning back to her friends as she shut the door. Boyd was making his way over to look at the pictures when he tripped on the log, falling backwards towards Isaac. Isaac quickly put his hands out in front of him, ready to catch him as he fell; Erica dropped the camera in shock when instead of falling into Isaac's arms as they'd expected Boyd continued to fall, passing straight through Isaac's body and landing in a heap on the floor.

Isaac span round as fast as he could, both hands patting his chest to try and figure out what the hell has just happened. Boyd was laying on the floor doing the same thing, Erica crouched down next to him to make sure that he was okay. She knew logically that there was nothing that was okay about what happened but she was trying to block it out of her mind and just make sure that he wasn't injured. She stood up when she seen that he was fine, she tried to take his hand to pull him up but when she did his hand passed straight through hers, leaving her hand tingling like she had pins and needles.

Boyd huffed and got up from the floor himself, staring at his hands in disbelief. Erica started to back up towards the tree; she needed to use it to keep upright because at the rate things were going she felt like her legs were going to give way from shock any minute. When she reached the tree she put a hand against it to steady herself, as soon as she touched it she knew something was wrong because the area around her hand was really warm, she frowned and put her other hand against the tree and, sure enough, it was hot there as well. Just as she was about to ask Isaac to come and have a look, tendrils of fire started to poor out of hands and surround the tree.

She let out a yelp as she backed away from the tree, watching the fire spread up the tree, the banner catching light and falling to ash on the ground. When the flames finally settled all of the leaves hand burnt off and the bark of the tree was a pitch black, two hand prints had been burnt into the side of the tree right where her hands were.

"What the hell just happened?" Isaac walked over to her to make sure she was okay but she quickly backed away from him. "No, don't touch me; I don't want to hurt you."

"Erica, you need to calm down." Erica lifted a hand up, using the sleeve of her jacket to rub at her eyes when she felt tears fall down her face. Isaac had stopped near the burnt tree, staring at the black hand prints left on the trunk.

"How the hell am I meant to calm down Isaac? I just set fire to a tree by touching it and Boyd just passed right through you! How can I be calm about any of that?!"

"I don't know! I'm still trying to figure it out myself." Isaac moved away from the tree over to where Boyd was sitting. "Maybe Boyd passing through us was just a fluke; I bet you I can grab his arm now."

Isaac reached out and grabbed hold of Boyd arm but pulled back as soon as he'd touched him, Boyd screaming in pain and grabbing hold of his arm, moving away from him.

Isaac looked down at his hands in panic, not understanding what he'd just done. There were no marks on his hands, nothing to suggest he'd done it but Boyd's arm was living proof. A large red mark was covering his skin, a mark the exact size and shape of Isaac's hand. He glanced over at Erica to see that she was starting to cry even more.

"Now do you understand why I can't be calm?" Isaac nodded and sat down on the ground, he looked terrified of what he'd done to Boyd. Erica watched as a tear fell down Isaac's face, he went to wipe it away but stopped before his hand could touch his face, too scared of what might happen if he touched it.

* * *

**Stiles Stilinski (20)**

**Los Angeles, California**

Stiles woke up with a splitting headache, not for the first time this week. He'd barely been getting any sleep because of them and they were starting to really piss him off. He was having a hard enough time at University without being sleep deprived. He'd had nearly finished his second year of studying Criminology and if he was honest with himself, he wasn't enjoying it as much as he'd once hoped.

His father was the Sheriff of the police force in their town and he'd always be bringing home the case files for the crimes that had been going on. Stiles would always try to get a look at the files, try to help his dad in anyway that he could, he was actually pretty good at it, helping to piece things together that his dad just couldn't see. The problem was, now that he was learning it all, now that he was working his way to becoming an officer himself he found that he didn't want it, that he didn't want to follow in his dads footsteps anymore. He wanted to do something different with his life.

He didn't know what had brought on his sudden change of heart but he knew his dad would not be happy if he found out, he'd spent a lot of money to get him to where he was and he wasn't about to flush it down the drain. Not yet anyway.

It was five am, way to early to be awake but he couldn't get back to sleep because of the pain in his head so he got up, got dressed and decided to go for a walk; use the fresh air to try and clear his mind. Since the university was relatively small, students could stay on the campus throughout their entire course if they wanted to instead of having to move out, which was useful as he was rarely late for any of his lessons. Most people chose not to but since he was a bit short on money he couldn't afford to rent anywhere with his friends, so he stayed.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he walked towards the coffee shop that was just off campus, open 24/7, for reasons he didn't really understand but was grateful for none the less. There weren't really many people in when he got there, big surprise there, but he did recognise some people from the year above him over in the corner. He went and sat down on one of the stools by the counter and waited for someone to come out from the back room to ask him what he wanted. A couple minutes later someone came out to serve him, he smiled when he noticed who it was.

"Hi Heather." She smiled back and lent over the counter to give him a hug.

"Morning Stiles! Bit early for you isn't it?" She pulled away from him as he nodded.

"I felt the need for change; see what it felt like to be up early. I really don't see why people do it, I'm exhausted." Heather laughed as she busied herself with making his usual. The two of them had met last year and were close friends, he'd probably say that she was his best friend actually. They both took the same course so he saw her nearly every day, she'd moved to a flat off campus though so he didn't see her as much as he used to. That was why she was working at the Coffee Shop, trying to get the money to pay the rent. Heather placed the mug of coffee in front of him and frowned when she noticed how tired he looked.

"Are you having trouble sleeping?" Stiles nodded and took a sip of his coffee, wincing and putting it down when it burnt his tongue. "How come?"

"I've just been getting these really bad head aches, I'm sure it's nothing."

_**"Well you look like shit"**_ Stiles scoffed and looked up at her.

"Thanks, really helping."

"I didn't say anything..." Stiles frowned; he'd definitely heard her speak.

"But you just said I looked like shit, I just heard you say it." Heather moved around the counter so the she could sit on the stool next to him.

"Well I definitely think it; I wasn't going to say it out loud."

"But I heard-"

"Stiles, you look shattered, you look like you'll fall asleep any minute. You're probably just not thinking strait." Stiles closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his hands.

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Of course I'm right, I'm always right." Stiles smiled at her and picked up his coffee, taking another drink of it and nearly chocking on it at what he heard next.

_**"I wonder if she'd have sex with me if I asked."**_ He quickly swallowed his drink to stop himself from spitting it all over the place and looked round the room to see who'd said it. He figured it must have been someone pretty close as the voice was quite loud. It was a male voice but the only other guys in the room were too far away for it to have been them. He turned back to face Heather when she placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" Stiles nodded, looking over her shoulder to see if it was anyone on the other side of the room but there was no one there.

"Yeah, I just thought I heard something, it was probably just..."

_**"Help me, please someone help me!"**_ Stiles frowned and looked around the room again, this voice was a girls, but again none of the girls in the room were close enough for it to be them. _**"Please! Please help me!" **_Stiles closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands against his temple. He could have swore the voice was coming from inside his head, the pleas for help getting louder and more panicked every time he heard them, but they were a bit fuzzy as if they were having trouble getting to him. He barely even noticed Heather shaking him to get him to look at her.

"Stiles? Stiles what's wrong? Stiles!" Stiles got up from his stool, ignoring Heather, and walked out of the coffee shop, hoping the breeze would help sooth his head but as soon as he stepped outside the pleas just got louder, as if he was getting closer to the source of the voice. He didn't want to believe that he really was hearing voices in his head because that was ridiculous, just things that happened in films, not real life. It was insane but he had the feeling that if he tried to find the girl that was screaming in his head for help then he'd be able to get it to stop. That was how it worked in films right? The hero saved the girl and all his problems were solved.

Letting out a large breath of air Stiles focused on the voice, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

_**"Please! Please some help me! Please!"**_ It felt like the voice was coming from the right, if someone were to ask him how he knew he wouldn't have been able to tell them but it just felt right so that was the direction he headed. He knew he was right when the voice got clearer and clearer the further he ran in that direction and soon he was stood outside of an abandoned warehouse just on the outskirts of town. He heard a loud bang coming from the building and then the scream of a girl, this time it wasn't in his head. He felt glad that the voice had momentarily stopped for all of two seconds until he released that someone was in danger in there and he was the only one there to help them.

"Oh my god, what is my life?" Stiles muttered to himself before running into the building, following the sounds that were being made towards the back of the building. "Hello?" He tried calling out to whoever was in there but he got no response. "Are you okay?" Still no response. He continued through the building until he reached a pile of rubble from what was obviously a fallen wall, there was still dust filling the air from when it had fallen so he was having trouble seeing anything ahead of him. He tried to talk to the person again. "Are you okay? Are you in there?"

"Oh thank god! Please, help me! I'm stuck!" Stiles let out a sigh of relief when the girl responded, trying not to be freaked out that her voice was exactly the same as the one in his head as he tried to find a way around the brick wall. He saw a small opening to his left and went over to it; it wasn't quite large enough for him to fit through. There was a wooden plank on the right of the gap so he pushed it up to make the gap larger but abruptly stopped when it caused the girl to scream in panic as the bricks that were leaning against it started to fall over the other side of the broken wall.

"Sorry! I'm sorry! I'm just trying to get through to help you." Stiles was starting to panic, he had no idea what he was doing and from the noises the girl kept making she sounded like she was in immense pain. "How did you get over there in the first place?"

"There's a door down the end of the room your in, you can-" The girl's voice was blocked out by the wooden pole Stiles had been moving fell to the floor, sending more bricks falling to the ground. Stiles was really starting to see the urgency of the situation, the wooden plank seemed to be one the only thing that was stopping the metal beams that kept the roof up from collapsing in on themselves, and now that it had fallen they were starting to creak.

"Okay, okay find the door." Stiles quickly walked the length of the room looking for the door, when he found if he grinned, pushing it open and running over to where he could now see a girl laying on the floor, the fallen brick covering her lower half completely. She was struggling to get out from under them, blood trickling down her head from a large gash on her forehead. She looked over at him when he came closer, the look of panic on her face made him even more worried about the situation. He knelt down next to her to see how he could get her out without the bricks falling down on both of them.

"You're going to be fine; I'm going to get you out of here. I'm Stiles, what's your name?"

"Cora, my names Cora. Please get me out of here!" Stiles picked up one of the bricks experimentally and was glad when nothing else fell, he continued moving the bricks off her stomach until she could sit up properly. The two of them looked up at the beams when they creaked again, knocking a few bricks behind Stiles, just missing them. "Pull me out." Stiles looked at her then, the panic in her voice scaring him.

"What?"

"Please just pull me out, it might work. I can't feel my legs, please!" Stiles nodded and moved so that he was stood behind her, he crouched down and wrapped his arms around her waist, ready to pull her out.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" She looked over her shoulder at him, tears now falling down her face.

"Just do it! Please!" Stiles took a deep breath before he stood, pulling her as hard as he could. The two of them fell in a pile on the floor as she was freed from the rubble; Stiles quickly got up and pulled her further away from the rubble as it started to fall, the beams creaking dangerously above them. Realising that pulling her was taking to long he hooked his arm under her legs and pulled her up so that he was carrying her, her arms wrapped around his neck and her head buried in his neck.

_**"Please get me out of here."**_ Stiles moved as fast as he could back the way he had come, making it out of the building just in time for one of the beams to fall with a loud bang, making the outside walls of the room they'd just been in cave in on themselves. As soon as he knew that they were out of danger he sat down again the wall of the building next to them, Cora situated on his lap, still crying. He looked down at her legs and cringed at the sight; her left ankle was definitely broken, it was twisted in a weird angle that shouldn't really have been possible. She also had numerous cuts and bruises all over her body, the cut on her head had stopped bleeding, the blood now drying against her scalp. Stiles moved slightly so that he could get his phone out of his pocket, dialling the number for an ambulance.

He sat holding her until one finally arrived.

* * *

**Kate Argent (29) and Derek Hale (24)**

**Beacon Hills, California**

"Derek, these paintings are amazing! I think they're my favourites." Kate spun round to face him wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a quick kiss on his lips. She smiled when he put his arms around her and pulled her in closer.

"You really think so? Do you think they'll like them?"

"Derek, they're your parents, they'd love them even if they were crap. Stop worrying about it."

"It's just important to me that they like them." Kate smiled up at him and ran her fingers through his hair.

"I know it is, you've been working on these for weeks. But I promise you, they'll love them." She kissed him again before turning so she had her back pressed against his chest, his arms still securely wrapped around her waist.

The paintings were truly brilliant; there were three of them, one long canvas and two smaller square ones to go on either side. They depicted his family. His mother and father, one on each of the square canvases; and Derek, his two sisters, Laura and Cora on the longer canvas. The paintings were an anniversary present for his parents, thirty years together. This was the first time Kate had seen the paintings, he hadn't wanted her to see them until they were ready but she was glad for the wait. She wasn't lying when she said they were her favourites.

Derek had started to get into painting in high school, finding that art lessons were one of the only things in school where he really understood everything the teacher was telling him. Most of his artwork had a theme; they tended to be focused on animals, mainly wolves. He'd recently started work on drawing comic books about people with super powers, the most recent edition about a boy with the ability to stop time named Jackson, and his friend Danny who could teleport.

Kate took the time to look around the studio at all the other paintings in the room, her gaze falling on two in the corner of the room.

"When did you paint those ones? I don't remember seeing them yesterday." Derek followed her gaze and frowned at what he saw.

"I don't even remember doing those." Kate pulled away from his grip and went over to get a better look at them, Derek following her over. One was of a man who looked to be in his late teens, possibly early twenties, moles dotted over his skin; stood next to an older man dressed in police uniform, possibly his father by the looks of him. The two of them seemed to be arguing over something. In the second painting a boy, who seemed to be in high school, was stood with a camera filming a girl of the same age, with what looked to be a metal pole stuck in her chest.

"Derek, these are really good. Are you sure you don't remember painting them?" Derek stood next to her, still frowning.

"I don't know, I really don't remember doing them at all. Must have done them a while ago, I guess."

"Son, that second one is quite disturbing, what on earth made you paint that?" Both Derek and Kate turned round at the sound of Mr Hales voice to see Derek's parents stood by the door; Derek smiled and went over to greet them. Kate studied the paintings a little longer before reluctantly following Derek over to his parents.

"Mr and Mrs Hale, it's lovely to see you." Now this Kate was lying about, she disliked the Hales almost as much as they disliked her. Mrs Hale looked her up and down, smiling slightly in acknowledgement before turning her attention back to her son. Kate wasn't particularly well liked by Derek's family; they thought she was too old for him. She'd understood it when they'd first started dating, Derek was only seventeen at the time and she was twenty two, a five year age difference that she even questioned a little back then. But after seven years together she had hoped they would understand that they loved each other and would be a bit nicer to her. Unfortunately she had no such luck and Derek never even seemed to notice that they didn't get along, either that or he just chose to ignore it.

"Laura said you had something you wanted to show us?" Derek nodded and went over to the three paintings to answer his mother's question.

"I made you these, for your anniversary." Derek scratched the back of his head nervously as his parents came to look at the paintings. Kate took hold of his other hand and squeezed it gently. "I thought you might like them."

"Oh Derek, these are lovely. Are they from-..?"

"The pictures we took with Cora before she went to University, yeah." Mrs Hale smiled fondly at the memory.

"Ah, yes. I remember. Speaking of your sister, she's back next for the summer holidays so you best come round to see her, I bet she's missed you terribly."

"Yeah, of course. We'll definitely come over." Mr Hale glanced over at Kate for a second before his eyes fell back on Derek.

"I think maybe just you should come, Derek, we don't want to crowd him with people as soon as he gets back. No offence, Katherine."

"None taken, Sir." Derek looked down at Kate to see if she was okay with it and she nodded, having already expected not to be invited to come. Not really wanting to spend more time with the Hales than was absolutely necessary, Kate excused herself.

"I'll leave you three to talk." Derek kissed her on the forehead and told her he'd be up in a little bit before turning back to tall to his parents.

Kate made her way upstairs to hers and Derek's bedroom whilst he continued talking to his parents. She sat down on the edge of the bed and rested her forehead in her hands, a headache starting to form. She'd been getting headaches all week and they were getting worse every time she got one which was starting to worry her a bit. She'd been to the doctors and they thought it was just down to stress, but what she was stressing about she didn't know.

By the time Derek's parents had left, her headache had finally subsided. She wished that Derek's parents would like her; she didn't understand what she'd done wrong to make them continue to dislike her, but she was determined to find out. She sort of hated them for it, she'd never been anything but kind to the entire family and they wouldn't even acknowledge her if Derek wasn't in the room.

When Derek climbed into the bed behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist she smiled, opening her eyes to look at the two of them in the mirror, what she wasn't expecting to see was not one, but two of her in the mirror. The second reflection was stood at the end of the bed, grinning at her, a lighter in her hand. She closed her eyes tight, hoping she was just imagining things because when she opened her eyes again the reflection was gone. Blaming it on the medication she'd taken she moved back so she was pressed against Derek's back and tried to get some sleep.

Kate woke up with her head resting on Derek's chest, his fingers running through her hair. The familiar heat was enough to make her want to curl up into his side and just go to sleep again, but by the light coming through the window she figured it was getting to be around ten o'clock already. She smiled when his hand stopped to rest on her cheek, glancing up so that she could see him.

"Morning." She said, causing Derek to smile back at her and lean in to kiss her on the forehead.

"Morning. You feeling any better?" Kate sat up in the bed, confused.

"I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"You got up at about two, said you weren't feeling very well." Derek pushed himself up so that he was also sitting, pressing a hand gently to her forehead. "Do you not remember that?"

"No, I don't remember anything. How long was I gone?" Derek dropped his hand down to take hold of both of hers.

"I don't know, you told me to go back to sleep, I don't remember hearing you come back to bed. You're probably just not awake enough to remember it all yet." Kate sighed and rubbed at her eyes, glancing over at the mirror near the bed. She froze when she was able to confirm her suspicions from last night, there were again two reflections in the mirror, the other reflection was currently running it's hands down Derek's bare chest.

"Stop it."

"I didn't do anything." Kate shook her head and looked back at him.

"No, not you, her." Kate looked back into the mirror, the other reflection still pressed up against Derek's side, kissing up his neck. Kate watched the mirror as Derek followed her gaze to look at it, trying to see what it was that she was seeing.

"Kate it's just you, there's no one else there." The reflection winked at her before completely disappearing leaving her confused and a little bit scared. "Maybe you should try and get some more sleep; you're probably just imagining things.

"Yeah." Kate ran her hands through her hair and let out a sigh, smiling at him and kissing his cheek. "Yeah you're right, it's probably nothing."

* * *

**Please let me know what your thoughts about this were, all comments would be greatly appreciated!**

**- Jess**


	2. Chapter two - Consequences

**Danny Mehaelahni and Jackson Whittemore (18)**

**Honolulu, Hawaii**

"I hate Hawaii, I don't want to live here anymore."

"Oh would you quit complaining, you've only lived here for a month, it might grow on you." Jackson didn't hate Hawaii, it was just different and different was a bad thing in his eyes. Back where he used to live in New York he was more important, more noticed, now he was just the new guy and he hated it. When his family had first talked about moving he was scared. He didn't want to leave the city, it was his home, had been for eighteen years and when they arrived he just felt like he didn't fit in at all.

But Danny helped that, he was the first person to speak to him at school, he'd lived in Hawaii his whole life so he helped show him round everywhere. It was a great help and now he was the only friend that he had, which he was grateful for, he helped him feel like he could fit in with everyone else.

They were currently at Jackson's house, He was lying on the bed, complaining (as usual) about his life in general and Danny was sat on the chair at his desk mostly ignoring him, instead working on their last project before school was out.

"Why do you think no one likes me?" Jackson sat up on the bed, swinging his legs round over the edge.

"Probably because you act like a pretentious dick around everyone."

"No, Danny, I'm serious." Danny shut his laptop and span round in his chair to face him, seeing that the issue really seemed to be a problem for Jackson.

"Why do you care so much?" Jackson sighed and moved so that he was sat cross legged on the bed, his back up against the wall.

"I just do."

"I don't understand why you care so much."

"You wouldn't, no one's ever really talked to you anyway because you're..." Jackson cut himself off before he could finish his sentence, cautiously looking over at Danny to see his reaction.

"What, because I'm gay?" He shook his head, willing the conversation to divert to something else seeing that Danny was starting to get annoyed.

"No, I didn't-"

"Yes you did. You did mean it like that, that's probably why people don't like you because you never think before you speak. You never think that you might offend someone with what you say." Jackson knew that he had a point, he'd always had a problem with that but back home people didn't seem to mind it that much, people still liked him. He tried to stop it, like he'd tried just now but they'd always end up getting angry with him anyway.

"I didn't mean it offensively, Danny." Danny smiled and Jackson was quickly grateful that he wasn't mad with him anymore.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry for shouting."

"It's fine." Jackson got up off the bed, grabbing the two glasses on the desk. "Refill?" Danny nodded in reply and got back to their project. Jackson exited his room and carried the glasses down the stairs, tripping over a pile of clothes on the bottom of the stairs. He let go of the glasses in a panic to catch himself before he fell over, he screwed his eyes shut when he hit the floor getting ready to hear the glasses smash, but the sound didn't come. He frowned and opened his eyes, getting up from the floor and stood in shock at what he saw.

The two glasses were floating in the air, just above the ground, just hovering there like they were being held up by string. He was confused to say the least, this should not be at all possible but somehow they were just weren't falling.

He walked cautiously over to them and took hold of one of the glasses, surprised when it easily moved away. Nothing was holding it up, it was just managing to float there.

"Danny! Come see this." He called up to his friend, but got no reply. "Danny!" He shouted again, louder this time. He frowned and put the glass down on the floor. Being careful to not knock the other glass out of the air he ran back up the stairs to his room, only to find Danny frozen in position at the desk, his fingers poised to type but not moving.

He tapped his friend on the shoulder but got no response from him, nothing to say that he was even alive anymore. He tried waving a hand in front of his friends face and again, nothing. Realising that he wasn't going to get any response from his friend he left his room and went to investigate the rest of the house. His parents were out of the house so he couldn't check up on them, but he suspected the same thing was happening to them, where ever they were. They did however have a cat so he searched the house to see where she was.

He found her in his parents room, frozen in the air, it looked like she had been trying to jump up onto the windowsill at the time. He looked out of the window to see if everything was frozen outside as well, and was shocked at what he saw.

Cars were stopped at random points in the road, the owners still at the wheel but not going anywhere. There were two women walking their dogs stopped across the road from the house, laughing at something but they were frozen too. It was happening everywhere.

He backed up to sit down on his bed, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He looked around the room and saw that the hands on the clock had stopped as well, stuck on 6:43. None of it made any sense, he'd never been able to stop time before, thinking he'd have noticed it if he could. But there was no other way to explain in, time had stopped and he was the only one still moving. He tried to think of what he'd done differently in order for this to have happened, so he went back over what he'd done when he'd tripped.

He had been panicking at the time, worried that he was going to end up hurting himself but he'd been scared before, that was noting knew, so it couldn't be that. He'd screwed his eyes shut before he'd hit the floor though, not wanting to see the glasses smash in case some flew at his face. He closed his eyes tight and then opened them again, hoping that Danny would start moving but nothing happened. Everything was still stuck as it was.

He tried again, really concentrating this time. He grinned and sprung up from the bed when be heard the sound of the glass smashing on the floor. He heard Danny move around in his room, having heard the glass smash

"Jackson, are you alright?" He watched from his parents room as Danny stopped abruptly at the top of the stairs, his mouth opened in shock when he saw that Jackson wasn't there.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Danny span round to face him when he spoke, Jackson had to stop himself from laughing at the shocked expression on his friends face.

"How did you...? But you were just...? What?"

* * *

"I just don't get it, how is it that you have a super power and I don't?" Jackson shrugged as they made their way up the stairs leading to the front doors of the school.

"I don't know Danny, but I'd hardly call it a 'super power'" He made air quotes with his fingers when he said the last two words. Danny pushed the double doors open and the two of them walked inside.

"How is stoping time /not/ a super power?" Jackson stopped just in front of the doorway and turned to face him, causing Danny to nearly bump into him along with the people that were walking behind them.

"Will you just stop bringing it up? I'd rather not be known as the school freak thank you very much." Danny raised his hands in defense.

"Okay, okay. I'm just curious." He dropped his hands and walked round Jackson, figuring it was probably best to leave him alone, so he headed to his first lesson. He really was curious about Jacksons ability, after he'd explained what had happened with the glasses back at his house he hadn't believed him. It had only taken Jackson to suddenly go from sitting on his seat and the end of the bed to lounging on the bed with a sandwich for him to believe he was telling the truth.

If he was honest he was actually a little bit jealous, he'd been serious when he said he didn't get why Jackson got the power and he didn't. Jackson didn't even seem to care that he had an insanely cool power, or ability or whatever he wanted to call it. The point was it was incredible, and he didn't even seem to want it.

He entered his classroom and headed to his usual seat near the back of the room next to the window. He put his bag down on the floor and got ready for the lesson to begin.

As he leant down to get his books out of his bag he heard someone clearing their throat above him. He put his book on the table and looked up to see that it was Johnathan Greenberg stood in front of the desk.

"You're in my spot." Greenberg dropped his bag ontop of Dannys desk and folded his arms. Danny frowned up at him, confused, and moved his book from under the bag.

"I've sat here all year, I'm not moving now just because you forgot where your own seat is." Greenberg put his hands on the desk and leant down so that his face was closer to Danny's.

"Did you just call me stupid?" Danny had to stop himself from wiping the spit off of his cheek as he'd been spat on ad Greenberg said the last word.

"I didn't even mention it, please just leave me alone." Greenberg glared at him for a couple of seconds before pushing off the table, grabbing his bag an walking to another seat.

He let out a sigh of relief before muttering "what an idiot" under his breath, apparently not as quietly as he'd thought because Greenberg span back around to face him and before he knew it a fist was quickly moving towards his face.

He never did feel the impact of the punch. Just before the fist hit his face he was suddenly stood on the other side of the classroom, watching as Greenberg fell forward onto the desk and the class all gasped in shock at what had just happened.

Everyone in the room was staring at him but he felt just as confused as the all looked. He didn't bother going back for his bag he just ran out the room and down the corridor to where Jackson was in his classroom.

Luckily the teacher wasn't in the room yet and Jackson was sat close to the door so he could get to him easily.

"Jackson, we need to talk." Jackson looked up at him, a confused expression on his face.

"Go on then."

"No I mean in private." Jackson didn't make any effort to move. "Please?" Jackson sighed an got up from his seat, he grabbed his bag off the floor and left the classroom behind Danny. "Thanks."

"What is this about, Dan?" Danny made sure the door was shut properly and there was no one close enough to hear them before speaking.

"I think I just teleported." Jackson raised his eyebrows.

"Teleported?"

"You don't believe me, do you?" Jackson shrugged, making it obvious that he didn't believe him and that he obviously didn't care.

"You stopped time! Why is it so hard for you to believe that I teleported."

"Look, it's not that I don't believe you-" Danny scoffed and folded his arms.

"Yeah, right."

"I do and if you don't think I'm telling truth then fine. But you didn't believe me straight away so forgive me for wanting some proof." Danny couldn't help but think that he had a point but for the life of him he couldn't think how he'd done it. It had just sort of happened.

"I don't know how to prove it to you."

"Well think about it would you? What happened just before you... You teleported?"

"Greenberg tried to punch me in the face." Jackson looked shocked for a moment before he smiled to himself.

"I guess it's worth a shot." Danny frowned, not entirely sure what Jackson was thinking.

"What's worth a sh-" His eyes widened as Jacksons fist flew at his face, making contact with his eye and causing him to stagger back a few steps. He pressed a hand over his eye and tried to glare at him with the other.

"What the he'll was that for!" He had a sudden urge to punch Jackson himself because he had a huge grin on his face, obviously he'd enjoyed himself.

"Like I said, it was worth a shot."

* * *

**Stiles Stilinski and Cora Hale**

**A hospital somewhere in L.A**

Stiles had been sat waiting in the hospital since last night and he was starting to get restless. Since he wasn't a family member of Cora's they hadn't let him in to see her yet, insisting that they needed the permission of the patient and since she hadn't woken up yet, they couldn't ask her.

They'd had trouble getting hold of her parents as neither of them were answering their phones, but they'd gotten hold of some other family member he didn't catch the name of and they were on their way down from Beacon Hills to come and take her home.

Stiles was surprised to find that they lived in the same place he did, having never seen Cora around before. Beacon Hills wasn't exactly a large town, he'd spoken to nearly everyone that lived there at least once and recognised the faces of most of the residences. But he'd never heard of a Cora before, he'd have to ask her about it when she woke up.

When they'd first arrived they'd been separated and taken into different cubicles, Stiles had been wary about leaving her at first in case something happened, but the doctors assured him that she would be fine so he followed the nurse to where she was taking him. He was confused at first as to why he needed to be checked over, knowing that he hadn't injured himself when he'd saved Cora. He was surprised to find that he had a rather large cut down his arm, not entirely sure how it had gotten there, that the nurse had decided had needed stitches.

They couldn't find anything else wrong with him so he was discharged. They told him that he could either go home or stay to make sure his friend was okay. He had been about to tell them that he didn't really know her but figured that if he said he was friends with her they were more likely to let him see her when she woke up.

So now he was just sat waiting, willing her to wake up with his mind but apparently that wasn't how this thing worked. He'd figured out that he could tune into other people thoughts but couldn't get them to hear his own. The fact that he couldn't get it to work was sort of annoying, he'd watched x-men a thousand times an he was sure Professor X could get people to hear his thoughts too, speak to then with his mind. He decided he would work on that later, for now only concentrating on what he already knew he could do.

It was difficult at first; since the hospital was so crowded every time he tried to listen to what one specific person was thinking his head would fill with the sounds of every one else in the building, the level of noise was not unlike a fog horn going off right by his ear and after every attempt he had to sit still for a few minutes before the pounding in his head settled down.

The successes were few and far between but they were successes none the less. So far he'd learnt that the nurse who had been looking after him was worried about another one of her patients, but he wasn't quite sure what she was worried about. He knew that the man that was fixing one of the computers at the reception desk hated his job and wanted to go home to see his kids. He also knew that the woman who was sat opposite him in the waiting area thought he was really strange because he kept pulling weird faces when he was concentrating.

These things he was happy to hear, thoughts that he didn't feel like he was intruding on, ones that weren't especially personal to the thinker. He had, however, latched onto the thoughts of some people that he wished he hadn't. There was a man in the corner of the waiting room that hadn't spoken a word to anyone since he'd arrived four hours ago, Stile had been curious as to why he was there but he hadn't meant to look at his thoughts specifically, it had just happened. As soon as he heard what he was thinking he wished he hadn't. It turned out that his wife had been in a car crash and was having an operation to save her life; apparently the doctors had told him she wasn't likely to survive.

After that he stopped trying, not wanting to impose on peoples private thoughts any more than he already was. He thought he probably should have realised that a hospital wasn't the best place to be testing out his abilities so he instead just sat and waited for Cora to wake up; he had a lot of questions.

His phone rang not long after, it was Heather calling, probably to try and figure out what the he'll was going on. He got out of his seat and went into the corridor to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Oh thank God you're okay! I only just got off my shift, what happened?" He leaned back against the wall as a nurse pushed one of the patients along in their beds.

"Where do you want me to start?"

"Everything, tell me everything." So he did. He told her about how he could hear what the people in the coffee shop thinking, about how he heard Cora in his head asking for help, about the collapsing building, everything.

"So you can read minds now? Like Magneto?"

"Magneto can't read minds, he can control metal, it's Professor X that can read minds."

"Oh, which ones that hot one in the new film?"

"James McCavoy? He's Professor X."

"Right, okay but that's not the point. You saved a girl from a collapsing building because you could hear her thoughts?" He could hear the disbelieving tone in her voice, he wondered if this was how everyone would react if they knew.

"That's pretty much it, yeah."

"You know that's impossible, right?" He rolled his eyes, even though he knew she couldn't see.

"Yes, Heather, I know." The doors to his left opened and the nurse that he'd spoken to about Cora earlier came through. She mouthed 'she's awake' to him and suddenly talking to Heather seemed to be as far from his thoughts as possible. "Heather, I've got to go, I'll talk to you later." He hung up the phone before she had a chance to reply. He stuffed the phone in his pocket and followed the nurse to Cora's room.

* * *

When Cora woke up she didn't know where she was or how she'd gotten there, only that her head was pounding and that the lights were way too bright. She blinked a few times until her eye sight cleared enough that she was able to figure out that she was in a hospital room.

The room itself was quite small, large enough to fit a bed, side table and chair with just enough room to move around in so that it wasn't cramped. The first thing she really noticed was that her throat was really dry, she tried sitting up to get the glass of water that was on the side but stopped abruptly when all of her muscles screamed in protest, causing her heart rate to speed up and the beeping of the machine on the bed side table to quicken.

Soon enough a nurse came into the room to help sit her up carefully, putting pillows behind her back to keep her upright. From there she was able to relax a bit more and ask for a drink of water, which the nurse happily retrieved for her from the side.

"There's a boy outside that would like to see you, I think he said his name was Stiles?" She frowned at the name, recognising it but not remembering where she'd heard it before. She took the drink from the nurse and took a sip. She had to wrack her brain for a while until she was able to figure out why the name rang a bell. He was the boy that had helped her out of the rubble. At the show of recognition the nurse continued her questioning.

"Is it alright if I let him into see you?" Cora nodded to show that she was fine with it so the nurse left her side and exited the room, she assumed, to find Stiles.

A couple of minutes later the door opened again and the boy stuck his head in, a shy smile on his face. She instantly recognised him as the boy that had saved her, even though her memory of what happened was a little hazy.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay before I left, how are you feeling?" He closed the door behind him when he walked in and stood awkwardly at the end of the bed waiting for her to respond.

"I'm a bit confused as to what happened and my head is killing me, but other than that I think I'm doing okay." He nodded, scratching the back of his neck nervously. It looked like he was unsure as to what to say. "Do you... Want to sit down?" She gestured to the chair beside the bed; he looked as if he was going to refuse the offer for a second before a small smile spread on his face and he sat down on the chair with his legs crossed.

"The people at reception phoned your parents a couple of hours ago but they couldn't get hold of them." Cora tried to sit up properly on hearing that, worried about her parents well being.

"Are they okay? Do you know if something's happened to them?" Stiles put a hand on her shoulder to try and get her to calm down.

"They wouldn't tell me anything since I'm not family, I don't think they knew themselves, but I'm sure there's nothing wrong. They're probably just busy." She sighed and leant back against the pillows again, Stiles' word's comforting her.

"Have they managed to get hold of anyone?"

"I heard them on the phone to someone else, sounded like they were able to come down and get you but I don't know who it is. They called them 'sir' if that helps?" Derek, it had to be him. She didn't really have that many family members that lived close by, just her parents, her sister Laura and her brother, Derek. He was probably who they'd phoned.

"Did they say how long they were going to be?" Stiles shook his head.

"No, but since he's coming up from Beacon Hills, if he left as soon as the hospital called, he'll probably be here in the next half hour."

"How do you know that?"

"I live there too. My dad's the Sheriff."

"Wait… Sheriff Stilinski? He's your dad?" When he nodded in reply she finally realised why he looked so familiar, she'd seen him around before. "Your dad works with my mother, Talia. Talia Hale?" She saw the moment he realised who she was from just how his face suddenly changed from confusion to realisation.

"So you're Cora Hale? I'm sorry, I didn't recognise you."

"It's fine, I didn't recognise you either." She was about to ask him how he'd found her when the door opened and the nurse that had been in the room before walked in.

"Cora, your brothers here to see you."

* * *

**Derek Hale**  
**Beacon Hills, California**

The drive from his studio to his parents' house took just over twenty minutes. Derek's parents lived in a house quite far out in the woods. He'd loved living there as a kid, being able to play out in the forest with his siblings. He missed the house from time to time, not liking living in the centre of town so close to everyone else.

He'd left Kate asleep back at the studio; she'd been completely out of it when he'd woken up, apparently she'd been up for longer than he'd thought the night before.

He'd tried to ring Laura before he left to let her know that he was on his way; she'd stayed over at their parents house the night before as they'd been planning for the welcome home party for Cora. When she hadn't answered he tried both his parents and then the home phone but he didn't get an answer from either of them. So naturally he was now a bit worried, he doubted they'd gone anywhere as it was still quite early and even if they had, at least one of them would have had their phones on them.

He could see a smoke cloud rising above the Forrest before he even reached the entrance to the preserve. He pressed down on the gas pedal and drove as fast as he could towards the house, not caring about any of the road laws, just wanting to get to their as fast as possible.

The town seemed so much busier than it usually did, like the inhabitants were trying to stop him from getting to where he needed to be. After seven red lights and a near miss with another car he finally turned the corner, only skidding a little, and drove down the long path that reached to his family home.

He slowed down as he neared the house, his suspicions confirmed. The entire building was up in flames, the firemen that were surrounding the house trying desperately to stop the blaze from spreading further and causing even more damage. Derek got out of the car and tried to run to the building, wanting to try and help, but he was pulled back by the two police officers that were at the scene.

"Let me go!" He tried to pull away from the grip the officers had on his arms but they wouldn't loosen their holds. "Please! I need to help them!" The two officers pulled him backwards and he got pushed into the back of the police car. Before he had chance to try and get out they'd locked the doors and he was stuck watching the flames engulf the house and his family from behind the square window.

By the time the fire had finally been dealt with Derek had lost most of his energy from pounding on the window of the car, trying to get someone's attention to let him out. He hadn't even noticed he was crying until he settled back against the seat and buried his head in his hands. He heard one of the car doors open and looked up to see that one of the police officers had gotten into the front seat and was now turning to face him.

"Derek? Would you be okay if I asked you a few questions?" He ignored the officer's questions and dived in with his own.

"Are they okay?"

"Son I'm going to need you to answer a couple of questions before I can answer any of yours."

"Please, I just want to know if they're okay." The officer looked as if he were contemplating whether he should let him know or not. He nodded his head and Derek let himself get his hopes up, maybe they'd gotten out safely after all.

"If I tell you, do you promise to answer my questions?" Derek nodded so the officer continued. "The fire was pretty bad by the time the firemen got here, they tried entering the building but the entrance was caved in. We've had to wait until the fire was out to enter but they're in their now with the paramedics looking for survivors. I'm afraid we just have to wait and see, but it's not looking promising." Derek sunk down into the seat; he couldn't believe he'd gotten his hopes up. He knew that someone wouldn't be able to survive a fire like that, it was almost impossible. "I'm really sorry."

"It's fine, just... Ask your questions."

"Are you sure? I can give you a minute if you'd like?" He shook his head so again the officer continued. "Okay, do you know anyone who'd want to harm your family at all?" Derek frowned and looked back at the man, leaning forward slightly in his seat.

"Harm them? You mean this wasn't an accident?"

"I'm afraid I can't answer that just yet."

"Right, I get it, you have to follow procedure." He knew all about how the police force worked, his mum being an officer herself, and he knew there were certain things he wasn't allowed to be told until they had all the details. "No, I don't know anyone who would want to harm them. Is there anything else, or can I go?" The man wrote down his answer onto a notebook, not that Derek understood how his answer of 'I have no idea' would be of any use.

"Just two more then you're free to go. Did anything out of the ordinary happen last night when they came to visit you?"

"How did you-?"

"Your mother was telling us about how you were helping her with Cora's party, she said she was going to visit you yesterday at the station."

"You knew my mother?" The man nodded and Derek started to notice just how much the fire seemed to be affecting him too. "Urm, nothing interesting happened; it was just a normal visit. The only thing that was out of the ordinary was Kate suddenly got a headache and had to head upstairs." The man looked up from his note making to ask his next question.

"Did you say Kate?"

"Yeah, why? What does she have to do with this?" The man looked panicked, apparently he'd said too much so he quickly left the car, unlocking the door for Derek so he could leave before he went. Derek climbed out of the car, confused at the mans reaction to Kate.

He didn't have much time to think about it though as the paramedics were carrying someone out of the building. He rushed over to see who it was but again he was stopped by a wall of police officers trying to keep him back. He was knocked to the ground and the next thing he knew he was waking up in a chair in what he assumed was the police station.

He was sat in a large chair in the corner of the room, there was a large desk with a chair on wither side. There was a pile of folders on the desk, one of them he could see contained photos but he was too far away to see what they were of.

He had a feeling he didn't want to know.

His suspicions about where he was were confirmed when the Sheriff walked into the room and sat behind the desk. He opened one of the folders and looked through the files with a grim expression on his face. He obviously hadn't noticed that Derek was awake.

He cleared his throat, hoping to get the Sheriff's attention. The man jumped slightly on hearing the noise but calmed when he saw who it was. He shut the folder he was looking through and pushed it to the side of the desk.

"Why am I here?" The sheriff frowned.

"You don't remember what happened at the house?" He could remember fine what happened at the house, watching your home burn to the ground knowing that your families inside and not being allowed to help them isn't something you just forget.

He wished that he could though.

"No I mean, how did I get here?"

"You were knocked unconscious in your attempt to get to the house. I asked for you to be brought back here so that I could ask you some questions as soon as I got back and you were in a fit state to answer them." He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Would you mind answering a few for me now?" Derek nodded his conformation and moved to sit on the chair.

"I was already questioned back at the house, I don't know anyone that would want to harm them and nothing suspicious happened in the days before the fire. Are you treating the fire as suspicious?" The sheriff picked through the files on his desk before he found the one he was looking for and moved it so that it was in front of him.

"I can't answer that, Mr Hale. I'm sorry."

"You can't give out information, I know. But they're my family; I need to know what happened to them." The sheriff sighed and opened the folder, taking out three photographs. He placed them in front of Derek who immediately wished he'd never asked. In front of him were photographs of his family, his mother, father and sister, Laura.

They were all covered in burns, making it hard to distinguish one from the other, but after a while he could figure out who was who. He didn't understand why showing him these would explain why they're deaths were suspicious until he spotted it. Each of them had a single bullet wound to the head.

"They were murdered?"

He couldn't believe it. His family had been out right murdered and he wasn't there to save them. He couldn't understand who would have done this to them, his family was well liked in the town. His mother may have given out a few speeding tickets every once in a while but that wasn't exactly something to kill her over.

He slumped down in his seat and sighed, he rubbed a hand at his eyes to try and stop the tears he knew were threatening to fall.

Sensing his obvious discomfort the Sheriff moved the photographs out of sight.

"I'm really sorry, Derek."

Derek shook his head. "You don't have anything to apologise for just… You're going to find out who did this, right?"

"We're going to do everything we can to find out who did this to your family, I give you my word. We're already working on it now."

"So do you have any evidence? I mean, the fire must have destroyed most things, right?"

"Actually, I need you to confirm something for me. Where was Katherine Argent the night of the fire?" Derek frowned; this was the second time someone had brought up Kate.

"She was with me. I don't understand, what does she have to do with anything?" The Sheriff searched through his desk draw and brought out a message recorder. He pushed the device towards Derek.

"We received a phone call from your sister early this morning, unfortunately the call was missed but we were able to record the message that she left us. I need you to try and identify the people that speak, can you do that?" Derek nodded and pressed play on the device.

_"Come on, pick up the phone! Please!" _

"That's Laura. That's my sister." There was a loud bang and he could hear someone shouting but he couldn't make out what was being said. When she spoke again her voice was a lot quieter, she was whispering, her voice shaking as if she were crying.

_"There's someone in the house, please, you've got to pick up the phone!" _Someone must have picked up the phone at the police station as soon there was another voice on the line, it was a woman. **_"This is the Beacon Hills Sheriff Department, what is your emergency?" _**He could hear Laura let out a sigh of relief before speaking. _"Someone's broken into the house; please you have to send someone down here, fast." __**"We're tracking your call now, please stay on the line. I'm sending officers to your location now." **__"Oh thank god, please hurry. I think they-" _

There was another loud bang in the background, followed by a gun shot. Laura was now definitely crying. _"Oh my god, oh my god, I'm gonna die."__** "I'm going to need you to stay calm okay? Is there anywhere you can go? Anyway you can get out?" **__"They've block off all the exits, I've already tried to get out but-"_ Another gun shot sounded and Laura's crying suddenly got worse.

**_"You're going to have to find somewhere you can hide, can you do that." _**_"Y-yeah, yeah I can d-do that." _The line went quiet, the sound of footsteps the only thing you could hear and then a door closing.

_"N-now what?" __**"Just stay as quiet as you can, but I need you to stay on the line, okay?" **__"Okay."_

The line was quiet for a long time; just the sounds of Laura breathing heavily could be heard. Derek lifted a hand to wipe the tears from his face. He tried to think positively, Laura hadn't been completely alone when she'd died, but it didn't help.

If he hadn't been listening intently he probably wouldn't have heard it. Faint footsteps could be heard from somewhere in the house, slowly getting louder as they got closer to where Laura must have been hiding.

**"Laura?"** It was a new voice, one that he recognised but couldn't quite put his finger on. **"Laura are you there? Tell me you're okay?" **Derek looked up at the Sheriff when he figured it out.

"That's Kate, but how… she was with me this morning, she would have told me what had happened. I don't understand."

The recording stopped.

The Sheriff sighed.

Derek was just confused.

"We have reason to believe that Katherine was the one to murder your family."

He couldn't take it any more, so he left, the Sheriff didn't even try and stop him. None of this made any sense to him. Why would Kate murder his family, what had they ever done to her? How could Kate even murder anyone in the first place?

Derek sat in his car, which on of the officers had driven over to the station for him, and stared out the window. He wanted to go home but he didn't want to see Kate. He knew that if he saw her he'd start to question whether she could have done it or not. He knew it was ridiculous; she would never do anything to harm anyone. But the voice on the recording was almost definitely her.

His phone started to ring and he was so glad for the distraction that he answered it almost immediately.

_"Is this a Mr Derek Hale?"_

"Yes, who is this?"

_"I'm from the Los Angeles Community Hospital, we have a Cora Hale? I believe she's your sister." _So much for a good distraction.

"Yeah, she is. What happened to her, is she alright?"

_"It's nothing to worry about; she's broken her ankle and has a few minor cuts. We just need you here so we can discharge her and you can take her home."_

* * *

It took him a little over three hours to get to the hospital, it should have taken longer but he wasn't exactly driving at the speed he should have been.

He had no idea how he was going to tell Cora what had happened. She'd been living with their parents when she came home from university. He knew that she'd have to come and live with him at the studio but he just didn't know what to do about Kate.

The drive gave him a lot of time to think things over, but when he parked up he was no closer to figuring out what to do.

The hospital was jam packed full of people, and by the time he'd managed to get to the reception to find out where Cora was they only gave him rushed directions and pointed down a corridor before moving to the next patient.

He had to peek through the windows of some of the rooms on the way until he finally found where Cora was.

When he walked in he went straight over to her and hugged her, just happy to see her alive and well.

"Derek? Could you maybe loosen up a bit? You're hurting me." He quickly loosened his hold and took a step back. Cora rubbed at her arm but she was still smiling, happy to see him there.

"Sorry, I'm just glad you're okay." Someone cleared there throat behind him and he turned to see a boy around Cora's age stood awkwardly in the corner of the room.

"I'm just gonna go…" When he didn't move, Derek frowned, staring at him. He recognised him, but he couldn't figure out how. "Sheriffs kid, I live in Beacon Hills."

"How did you know I was-.."

"Going to ask who I was? You were just staring at me weird; I figure that was what it must have been."

"Right, and you would be here because?" Before the guy could open his mouth to speak, Cora answered for him.

"He was the one that saved me; he was just making sure I was okay before he left." The guy nodded and gestured to the door.

"So, I'm going to go. I hope you get better soon." He turned and opened the door; he was half out when Cora called over to him.

"Stiles!" Derek couldn't help but thinking what a stupid name that was. That must have shown on his face as well because the guy - Stiles – glared at him. "Do you need a lift home?"

Stiles just look confused for a minute looking between the two of them.

"Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to impose or anything."

"No its fine, right Derek?" He sighed, knowing he couldn't say no to Cora.

"Fine. We'll need to go pick up both of your stuff from school though."

* * *

**Isaac Lahey and Erica Reyes**

**Phoenix, Arizona.**

The two of them had stayed together after the incident, neither of them wanting to be alone in case something bad happened. Isaac had tried to stay positive for Erica's sake; she was terrified by what had happened, as you would be. If he was honest, he was probably just as scared as she was but he knew that letting it show would only make things worse.

They woke up early the next day, neither one of them getting much sleep. The damage to the garden looked even worse in the light; an entire branch from the tree had fallen in the night. The hand prints stood out a lot better in the light as well, he looked over at Erica to see that she was on the verge of tears again. He quickly closed the curtains so that the view was blocked form sight.

By the time they'd tidied up the living room their mum had come downstairs to make them breakfast. Erica pulled Isaac into another room so that their mum couldn't hear them speaking.

"What are we going to do? We can't just distract her all day, we need to do something!"

"Like what?"

"I don't know; just… keep the curtains closed for now. We'll figure it out later." Isaac went to shut the curtains in the room they were in, as soon as he touched them and started to pull them across; they went red hot and turned into a pile of dust on the window sill.

Isaac backed away, staring in shock at what had just happened.

"So I guess that wasn't just a one time thing then." He turned to glare at Erica and she held her hands up in defence. "Sorry, just trying to diffuse the tension." He smiled slightly and she took that as a win.

They decided they couldn't risk any more curtains turning to dust so they just left them. Distracting her was just going to have to be enough.

They both went back into the kitchen where their mum was putting down three piles of pancakes for them all to eat. They all took a seat at the table and waited for her to start eating.

Erica was a bit worried to even pick up her fork, if Isaac was still doing… weird things then what if she did too?

"Erica? Are you okay?" She bit the inside of her lip as she picked up her fork, when nothing happened she let out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, mum, I'm fine." She smiled at her before cutting of some pancake and eating it. She glanced over at Isaac to see that he'd braved the fork and his was now just a pile of dusk on the table.

Erica panicked and tried to keep her mums attention whilst Isaac dealt with his problem.

"So are you doing anything interesting today?" Her mum looked happy for conversation when she replied. Erica kept glancing over at Isaac when she was speaking not really paying much attention, just nodded occasionally.

"- well I'm so glad you agreed to help me." Isaac had pushed all of the dust into a pile on the floor, so she turned back to her mum and tried to make it look like she knew what she was talking about.

"Yeah, I'm happy to help."

"Good, we'll go and get the gardening stuff from the shed after br-.."

"Wait, no. No you can't do that." Their mum frowned and put her fork down on the table, next to her plate.

"I'm sorry?"

"Urm… I mean, we'll do the garden for you. You just go do something else?" She looked over to see Isaac looking panicked, but she just shrugged and turned back to her mum. She was getting up from the table and heading over to the back door.

Isaac quickly got up from the table and reached out to grab her arm to pull her away but stopped himself just shy of touching her.

He couldn't risk it.

She opened the door and leant against the doorframe.

"But it's such a lovely day, I want to help out." Isaac looked back over at her. He looked as confused as she felt. Why wasn't she shouting at them? "Can you two tidy the dished up? I need to go and get dressed." And with that she left the two of them in the kitchen.

Isaac walked over the door first and stopped in the doorway, blocking the view.

"Erica? You're going to want to come and see this." She walked over and stood just behind him, shocked at what she saw.

The whole garden looked perfect.

The fire damage had been taken care of and everything looked exactly how it should.

The only thing that was out of place was the woman stood in the corner of the garden, smiling at them.

* * *

******Allison Argent **  
**Seattle, Washington**

Her trip to the hospital had been mostly uneventful, they had, however, tried to put a cast on her arm to keep the bone in place until it could heal. The nurse who been called to give it to her, Melissa McCall, had tried to convince her to get a bright orange cast but she'd refused, opting for a normal White one.

"That's probably a good choice, the orange one wouldn't go with anything." She'd laughed and went to get what she needed for the cast. Allison noticed that she had the same last name as the trainee doctor that had been helping her before.

"If you don't mind me asking, are you related to Scott?" Melissa turned to look at her, a smile on her face.

"He's my son, yes." She could definitely see the family resemblance between the two. They had the same dark brown hair and eyes, they even had a very similar smile. "Why, do you know him?"

"No, not really, he brought me down here. He seems really nice though." She couldn't help but blush when she talked about him, Melissa laughed softly at her expense.

"That's Scott for you, couldn't harm a fly." She pushed and small metal table so that in was stood to her right, holding everything that she needed for the cast "How's he doing by the way? He didn't bother you too much I'd he?" She laughed and shook her head.

"No, he was great, I think my dad might have freaked him out a bit though. He seems like he's going to be a great doctor." Melissa smiled again.

"I'll let him know you said that. Now let me take a look at your wrist." Allison winced when Melissa took hold of her wrist for inspection, the pain she felt soon subsided until it felt like there wasn't anything wrong with it at all. She frowned and pulled away from the grip Melissa had on her arm.

"Did you... Did you just heal me?" Melissa looked panicked and was hastily getting up and moving the metal table away.

"I swear I didn't mean to, it's really hard to control it please don't tell anyone I'd -"

"It's fine, really. I understand what it's like." Melissa stopped what she was doing and turned back round to face her, leaning back against the wall.

"You have a power too?" Allison nodded and all the tension in the room seemed to fade away. "Oh thank god. Please don't tell anyone? It's sort of a secret."

"I promise, no one knows about mine either."

"So what is your power then? I mean you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, it's just I've never met any one else that has one before." Allison knew the feeling, besides her family she didn't know anyone else that had a power an it was actually pretty exciting to know that there were more people with powers in the world.

"Does Scott not have a power? I mean, isn't it a family thing?" Melissa moved so that she was sat back down on the chair opposite her.  
"We're not really sure yet, he's shown signs of having one but it's confusing."

"Confusing?" Melissa nodded and went on to explain.

"He seems to be able to replicate my power, but only when he's near me. It's weird, we think maybe he might be able to do it with other powers too but we've never met anyone else that had a power before to test it." It was a really interesting theory, the ability to replicate powers could be really useful, depending on the power you found.

"I can help, if you'd like." She didn't really know why she'd offered, but she felt like helping Scott to figure out his power was the right thing to do, was something that she needed to do. The smile on Melissa's face made her even more sure of her decision.

"Really?" Allison nodded and Melissa pulled her into a hug.

"Thank you! Thank you so much." After that everything went pretty easily, she got a sling around her arm, she was given the agrees of the McCall residence and Melissa took her back to her father informing him that there was no break and that it was just a sprain.

As she made her way to the car with her dad she heard someone shouting her name. She turned around in the car park to see Scott running over to her. Her dad was already at the car so she didn't have to worry about him over hearing.

"Hey Scott. I'm kind of in a hurry." He smiled and stopped just in front of her.

"I know, I just wanted to say thanks on my behalf, I appreciate what you're doing."

"It's no problem." She waved to him as she went back to the car, she was just about to open the door to get in when he called over to her again.

"Allison?"

"Yeah?" Thankfully the car park was moderator empty and the only other people that were there was an elderly couple that were too far away to hear.

"What exactly is your power?"

"I can fly."

* * *

"You know you've got to be more careful Allison, what if that woman's said something to the doctors?"

"You're just being paranoid, who would have believe her anyway?" Allison was having dinner with her dad at her house. She was struggling with her food a bit due to the fact that she had a sling on her arm. Melissa had thought it was probably best to pretend that she'd just sprained it. Coming to a hospital with a broken wrist and leaving completely fine looked a bit suspicious. Somehow she was doing okay and her dad seemed none the wiser.

Her dad, Chris, had been having a go a her for her carelessness the day before for the past ten minutes now and it was starting to get on her nerves. He was worried that the other woman in the accident was going to talk to someone about what had happened.

"That's not the point, you can't risk exposing yourself like that. You fell of a ten story building, hovered for a fee seconds then landed on that woman, another slip up like that and you'll expose yourself." She stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork and pushed it around the plate.

"I'm sorry, I'll try and be more careful next time."

"There's not going to be a next time." She dropped her fork down on her plate and looked up at him in shock.

"What? You can't just ban me from it! That's not fair!" Chris sighed and put down his cutlery, readying himself for an argument.

"I don't care if you think it's fair or not, you're not putting yourself at risk like that. If you want to test out your power again, you do it when I can supervise."

"You can't stop me from doing it."

"You know that I can and I will. Is that understood?"

"Just because you don't have a power doesn't mean that you have to try and control mine!" She regretted what she said as soon a it came out of her mouth. Her father was the only male in her family to not have a power and he didn't like it when it was brought up. Chris got up from his chair, his food left mostly uneaten; he wasn't looking at her when he spoke.

"You can't use your power when I'm not around, I don't want to hear any more on the matter. Is that understood?" Allison nodded her head even though she knew he couldn't see her.

"Yes sir."

* * *

Getting to the McCall's proved harder than she'd thought. Her dad had paid for her car to be driven to his house so that she couldn't go anywhere to test her abilities.

She thought the whole thing was completely un-necessary since she could just fly wherever she needed to go but he'd done it anyway. So since the car was gone she could wither walk or fly.

They didn't live all that far away, about half an hours walk but she was meant to be there in ten minutes so she figured flying was probably the way to go.

She was currently stood on the roof, having successfully cloned the tree next to her house to get there. Nervous was an understatement to how she was feeling. She'd never flown this far before and definitely without supervision so she was worried it wouldn't work. But she knew this was important to Scott so she took a deep breath and took a step forward so she was stood right on the edge of the building.

"Okay Allison, you can do this." She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. "You can do this." She took the last step over the edge, willing herself to stay in the air.

She opened her eyes and smiled to herself, she was floating in the air next to her house. The feeling was like nothing you could imagine, it felt like the air was collecting under her hands and feet. Every time she moved the balls of air would move with her. She concentrated again, this time willing the air to push her upwards.

She slowly moved upwards, moving her body so that she flew at an angle. She got high enough that she wouldn't be seen by anyone and followed the roads until she reached the the McCall house.

She was going to land on the ground but she saw a group of people across the street so she had to drop down in the back garden. She stumbled a bit on the landing, bumping into a outdoor chair in the process and knocking it over. The sound must have travelled into the house because soon both Scott and Melissa were running outside to see what had happened.

"Allison? Are you okay?" She hurried to pick up the chair and sort out her clothes before turning to them.

"I'm fine, sorry about your chair. I haven't really sorted out the landing part of all this yet." She gestured to the sky as she spoke the last bit and Melissa laughed, shaking her head and gestured for her to follow her inside.

* * *

**Lydia Martin**

**Dallas, Texas**

The school was pretty big and it was proving difficult to search the entire school in a day. Matt had spent all morning searching for the missing camera after being unable to find the dag prior. It wasn't in his locker; it wasn't in any of the classrooms he'd been in the day before and it wasn't in lost and found.

He'd tried asking people around school but most people had just ignored him and walked away. The best answers he got were either 'sorry' or 'I have no idea'. He was about to give up and tell Lydia the bad news when he saw someone with it exiting the school.

"Hey, that's mine!" Everyone in the hallway turned around to see who'd shouted, the camera stealer included. When the guy saw who it was he quickly took running towards the parking lot. "Damn it." Matt ran after him, pushing past people to get to the double doors leaving the school.

By the time he'd gotten out of the school he'd lost him in the mass of people that were outside for the lunch break. He spotted Lydia sat at a table not too far away from where he was so he ran over to talk to her.

"I know who took it. I know who took the camera." She looked up from her lunch when she heard him; he couldn't help but think she hadn't looked that happy to see him in a long time.

"Well? Who is it?"

"I don't know." She looked considerably less happy after that.

"But you just said-" He shook his head and spoke over her.

"That's not what I meant. I mean I found who took it but I don't know who it is." Lydia sighed and put her sandwich down on her lunch tray.

"You know that's not all that helpful Matt. We need to get the camera back before they see the tape, it's important." He sat down across from her at the table, putting his bag down on the space next to him.

"You think I don't know that? I promised you we'll get it back and we will." He said the rest mostly to himself "It'll just be harder than I expected."

"Okay, so what does he look like?"

"Who?" Lydia rolled her eyes at him.

"The guy that took the camera, what does he look like?" He tried to think about what the guy had looked like but he only got a glimpse of him before he got away, suddenly it seemed like he wasn't going to find him after all.

"I didn't see much but he was wearing a leather jacket and he was quite tall. I think his hair was brown." He watched as Lydia pointed at something over his shoulder.

"Sort of like that?" He quickly turned around in his seat to see that the person she was pointing at was the exact person that he'd seen with the camera. He was walking over to a motor bike on the other side of the parking lot; it looked like he was planning on leaving.

"Yeah, exactly like that. Come on." He got up from the table, grabbed his bag and headed over to where the guy was standing. He glanced back to see if Lydia was following him but she was still sat at the table. "Are you coming or what?"

"I'd rather just stay here and watch." She smiled sweetly at him and waved a hand in the guy's direction. "Go and get the camera back."

"No, you're coming with me." He grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her up off the bench and across the parking lot.

"Matt, let go of me." He stopped and turned to look at her but she didn't stop struggling against his hold.

"Promise you'll come with me if I let go?" She glared at him as she tried to pull away again.

"Yes, now let go." As soon as he let go of her Lydia huffed and marched over to where the guy was just as he was mounting the bike, she called over to him as she went.

"Excuse me; you have my friend's camera." Matt was almost too shocked at the fact that she'd called him her friend in public to follow but he soon realised that he really did need to help so he jogged over to join her. When he reached her he realised that the guy had gotten off his motorbike and was stood in front of Lydia, who had her hands on her hips as she tried to look intimidating.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, and I'd like it back." She held one hand out in front of her to receive the camera. Matt wanted to bury his face in his hands at how she was handling everything. The guy also seemed to think she was being ridiculous as he just shook his head and laughed at her, turning around to climb back on his bike.

Lydia looked back at Matt with an expression he thought was meant to read 'what now?'. Realising that was the extent of what Lydia was willing to do he grabbed hold of the guys forearm and pulled him around before he could fully climb on the bike.

"We'd really like that camera back." The guy raised his eyebrows and looked him up and down.

"And I'd really like you to let go of me."

"Yeah, well… give me my camera back and I'll let go of you." The guy pulled hard on his grip and Matt stumbled a bit and had to let go to stop himself from falling onto the guy.

"Look, I don't have your stupid camera, so if you'd just back off out of my way, that'd be great." Lydia pushed Matt out of the way and moved so she was stood pretty close to the guy. She had to look up to speak to him which sort of ruined the whole intimidating thing she was trying to pull off but the guy still seemed to back off a little bit.

"We saw you run off with it, so just give it back before this gets out of hand." The guy crossed his arms over his chest.

"You have the wrong guy, you mean-.."

"No," Matt interrupted. "It was definitely you."

"Urm… Matt?" Lydia pulled on his arm to try and get his attention.

"What?"

"We have to wrong person." He looked away from the guy to turn and face her. She was standing facing someone else. When he looked at him he realised that they really did have to wrong person.

The guy they were now both staring at was an exact copy of the guy not behind them.

Except this on was holding his camera.

"Oh…" He didn't get chance to say anything else because the one that was behind them grabbed him and pulled him back, leaving Lydia with the other one.

She looked back at Matt, a panicked expression on her face.

"We know all about what you can do Lydia." She looked back at the guy in front of her. "We just want you to come with us so we can try and help you."

"Help me? I'm fine." The guy sighed and grabbed hold of her and pulled her right up against his chest.

"Either you come with us, or we do it here."

"I think here is fine." The guy behind his started to protest at that.

"Aiden, those weren't orders. We have to take them back with us."

"You heard the girl Ethan, she wants' to do it here." The guy that had hold of Lydia – Aiden – suddenly let go of her, only to grab her arm and snap it. It looked like it took no effort at all and she fell to the floor, screaming in pain.

He tried to pull away from Ethan to get to her but he watched as her arm started to align itself again. He heard people gasp and looks over to see that they'd gained a rather large crowd.

They were so screwed.


End file.
